Free us, Lord, from our addictions

This was my assembly on addiction, given yesterday as chaplain of Venus College at St Edward's Church of England School and Sixth Form College:

Think of something that you really like and that makes you feel good. It can be anything you like; something you do, something you watch or listen to, something you eat, someone you like to be with.

Now think about the feeling that you get and how it makes you feel.

Imagine not simply enjoying that feeling but beginning to crave it; so that, rather than being something great when you happen to experience it, you start to want to have that same feeling more and more frequently.

Imagine now that you begin wake up craving that feeling so that you have to satisfy your craving that day.

Imagine that the craving is so strong that you will lie, steal, cheat, hurt, and maybe even kill to ensure you get that feeling that day.

What began as something good has become something ugly. What began as something you were free to enjoy has become something which controls everything about you. What began as something that enhanced your life has begun to destroy it.

That is how addiction works. We are most familiar with talk of addiction in terms of alcohol, drugs or smoking but we can actually become addicted to all sorts of things and addiction has taken hold when we can no longer cope without the thing to which we have become addicted. 

Earlier in the week I watched an interview with the shock rocker Alice Cooper; someone who has had a well-publicized battle with addiction, often consuming an entire bottle of whiskey each day. He has said, “Nobody ever sees the alcoholism coming. It’s one of those things that broadsides you. There’s never a place where the drug or the alcohol says, oh, by the way, it’s time to stop now. It just keeps going until your body tells you, ‘If you don’t stop you’re going to die.’ I never met anybody who was an alcoholic or a drug addict that ever walked out of it going, ‘Yeah, what a good idea that was.’ For me it was never a great idea.’”

Cooper has said that divine intervention is what broke his drinking habit in the mid-1980s. "I honestly think I was simply and completely healed. I guess you can call it a miracle. It's the only way I can explain it. It was absolutely eliminated from my life." He once told the Sunday Times, "Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call."


So how can Christianity help when it comes to addiction. First, the Bible commends moderation to us. “Moderation is better than muscle, self-control better than political power.” (Proverbs 16. 32) We need to be clear that the Bible doesn’t try to ban the good things in life, but does say don’t allow those things to control by becoming addictions. The way to do that is to enjoy things in moderation. The second thing it encourages us to do is to put God first. “Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead, be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5. 18) If we put God at the centre of our lives then everything else will find its proper place and won’t be addictive or controlling.


So, with those thoughts in mind, let us pray:


Lord Jesus, You said, "I have come to set the captives free." We are captive and need Your healing touch. Free us, Lord, from our addictions, so that we will be:
... free from the cares and worries that stifle our happiness;
... free from sins that cling to us, and to which we cling;
... free from all compulsive behaviour that prevents us from becoming what You, Lord, have planned for us.
Bring us, loving Saviour, to the experience of abundant life which You promised. Amen.


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Alice Cooper - Poison.